With my belly full from two cinnamon rolls and a cup of coffee and VANilla decorated with Mardi Gras beads, compliments of Pat and Gerald, I ventured southwest to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, a little over an hour outside of Houston. I talked my Uncle Casey into joining me literally in the middle of nowhere. If I hadn’t been meeting him, I probably would have turned around. I arrived at the east entrance of the Refuge at the same time Casey arrived at the west, 6.5 miles apart. We spent the morning walking around a pond and driving 15 miles of gravel roads looking at a variety of birds. Thankfully he knew his birds better than I did. We saw Canadian geese, snow geese, teal, ibis, egrets, herons, and more. It would have been a goose hunter’s dream. One shot would have taken at least three geese at a time. Thousands of them honked, took flight and landed in flocks on the field covering it in all white.

After the morning at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, I spent the afternoon at Big Thicket National Preserve. The preserve is home to four of the five insect eating plants. The Reader’s Digest book claimed I could learn the best places to see the plants by stopping at the Visitor’s Center. The teenager working the front desk didn’t know, but there were plenty of trail maps, so I took one and off we went. The dogs and I took the 1.6 mile Kirby Nature Trail beneath the pines and along the river.

After our walk, we continued north to camp in San Augustine, Texas for the evening.